Porn makes straight men more likely to support gay marriage

A new in-depth study has found the more straight men watch pornography, the more they warm to marriage equality.

Scientists believe the reason is porn opens up the mind to accepting non-traditional sexual situations, like gay sex.

Writing in the Communication Research journal, Indiana University Assistant Professor Paul Wright said: ‘Pornography adopts an individualistic, non-judgmental stance on all kinds of non-traditional sexual behaviors and same-sex marriage attitudes are strongly linked to attitudes about same-sex sex.

‘If people think individuals should be able to decide for themselves whether to have same-sex sex, they will also think that individuals should be able to decide for themselves whether to get married to a partner of the same-sex.’

He added: ‘Since a portion of individuals' sexual attitudes come from the media they consume, it makes sense that pornography viewers would have more positive attitudes towards same-sex marriage.’

The authors suggested that since lesbian porn ‘is quite popular’ among males, the change seen in the men toward same-sex marriage suggests a change in the attitude.

The study tapped into the National Science Foundation-funded studies of over 500 heterosexual men over the past six years, and compared their views of same-sex marriage.